Stepping Out of Cover

What: Leaning out has to actually move the character, not just change their pose. If the game still thinks they are tucked behind the wall while they are visibly out past it, it is protecting a body that is not where anyone can see it. The animations I started with did not move the character at all. They looked like a lean and travelled nowhere. So I moved the character myself, in code, and let the animation play over the top. It did everything I asked. They ended up exactly where they needed to be, at exactly the speed I wanted, and it looked wrong. The character leaned, and then they glided unnaturally, and once I had seen it I could not unsee it. The alternative is to animate a real step, which means giving up most of that control and tuning it by hand instead. I built both, put them side by side, and the animated step simply looked right where the other one did not. Everything I had written for the other one came out with it.

Why: The version that did exactly what I asked for was the one that looked wrong.